The Importance of Big Data

What is Big Data?

Big Data is a popular term that describes the growth, the availability and exponential use of structured and unstructured information.

The ‘Vs’ of Big Data.

Experts use the 5 Vs to describe the basis of this concept:

Where is big data coming from?

The sources of big data are increasing every year, but they generally fall into one of three categories:
Streaming data: this includes data that reaches your IT systems from a web of connected devices. The organization can analyze this data as it arrives and make decisions on what data to keep, what not to keep and what requires further analysis.
Social media data: the data on social interactions is an increasingly attractive set of information, particularly for marketing, sales and support functions. This data is often in unstructured or semi-structured forms, so besides the sheer size of the data, it poses a unique challenge when consuming and analyzing this information.
Publicly available sources: massive amounts of data is available through open data sources like US government’s data.gov, the CIA World Factbook or the European Union Open Data Portal.

As more practical examples of information that is part of the concept of Big Data, we have: contents send by emails, banking, online search services, management stock factories programs, telephone operators that register at any moment calls and data traffic, etc.
However, because of the large amount of information, they need specialized tools to deal with the large volume, to be possible that any information can be found, analyzed and utilized in a real time.

Hadoop is the principal open source platform specially developed to process and analyze large volumes of data, whether structured or unstructured. The project is maintained by the Apache Foundation, but has the support of several companies such as Yahoo!, Facebook, Google and IBM.

What companies can do with Big Data?

Big Data can be as important to business – and to society – such as the Internet has become. But it’s not the amount of data that’s important. It’s what organizations do with the data that matters.
Information is power. Today unstructured information represents 85% of the information that the organizations use. So, if an organization knows how to use the big data, and combines this with high-powered analytics, they are able to determinate root causes of failures, issues and defects in near-real time.

You can take data from any source and analyze it to find answers that enable:
1) Cost reductions.
2) Time reductions.
3) New product development and optimized offerings.
4) Smart decision making.
5) Customer’s buying habits.

Big Data and Advertising

Data can also change value chains and create opportunities for the emergence of new services. The advertisers can connect not only with groups, but also individually with each customer. With investment in advanced technology and database, we can discover consumer needs and make more precise advertising, eliminating unnecessary excess. The more precise advertising, the more efficient it becomes, and more return it will bring to the company.

Uses:

• Analyze customer data for insights that drive new campaign optimization strategies, acquisition and retention of customers.
• Quickly identify the most important customers.
• In some cases, generate coupons at point of sale based on current and past purchases, ensuring a higher conversion rate.
• Send personalized recommendations for mobile devices at the right time, while customers are in place to take advantage of the offers.
• Analyze data from social media to detect new market trends and changes in demand.

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Bibliography
infowester.com.  Accessed in 21/11/2015.
sas.com. Accessed in 21/11/2015.
sites.nielsen.com. Acessed in 23/11/2015.
20minutos.es. Accessed in 22/11/2015